Banal Series #19: Books as Display Accents in Furniture Stores

Furniture stores unfold labyrinthine, in pods of wonder and possibility. Clutches of fat brown leather chairs and sofas around oversized coffee tables. Dining room sets in various heights and designs. Office bundles. A desk, a secretary. A swivel chair in tucked upholstery fit for an oil magnate. Shelves of deep stained oaks, and bare pines hewn in rustic slats. They all sit, waiting, with desperate and aging salesmen combing and roving, clutching tie and clipboard. Customers are here, and they are browsing.

The unsung of this breed are the books fashioned as display accents. They sit, perched in neat pyramids. Dust jackets removed, and their hard bound (always hard bound, never soft) spines speak of titles in muted whites and golds. Embossed in mild ferrules, often describing best sellers, or lesser knowns of bygone times. Reader’s Digest collections tend to be favorites of the furniture store display. They are, inherently, from the past, and often doffed in simple ostentations evoking vague ideas of The Classics, and of five foot shelves. The spines of these bear titles (usually in threes) of novels long forgotten and unheard of in the vernacular. These Reader’s Digest tomes are more than likely purchased in bulk from a second hand store, or culled from a relative’s attic. They look serious. Next to those might be a jacketless copy of a hardbound John Grisham novel. Maybe a Michael Crichton work.

Books in furniture stores, however, are not to be disturbed. They are meant to appear within these menageries of potential furniture for one’s home, as an accent of authenticity. Of something real, and tangible. To give the illusion of context, and meaning. Oddly, nothing will upset the stasis of the furniture store more than taking off shoes, making oneself comfortable and cracking open one of these unread books.

Banal Series #18 Food Courts at Shopping Malls

The food court area of a shopping mall offers shoppers respite – hauling bags through throngs of people – a place to engage in a sensible, and ultimately, convenient meal. There are choices here. The hungry cue up in front of neon marquees and sneeze guard sconced counters. A veritable polyglot of types and styles of food are offered. This is, after all, within the confines of a modern shopping mall: a bastion of, and well vetted steward of the most ubiquitous of banal things.

A visitor to a mall food court knows, precisely, what to expect.

The vendors: well known chains, tropified and prepackaged, are fixed constants at the food court. The variable comes down to a composite of personal moods and tastes, compounded by a fluctuating algorithm of line lengths. Once the choice is made, trays, familiar to the consumer from approximately twelve years of school aged usage, are carried to the seating area. Chairs around tables of various size and length, and booths framed by planter boxes filled with artificial plants pock the food court in a tessellated fractal. The entirety of the area is shrouded in the cacophonous din of hundreds of wills interacting in dozens of conversations.

Logistically, the food court sits as an out of the way pocket of mall traffic. A sort of architectural fistula of rest and regrouping.

Banal Series # 17, Industrial Parks

Industrial parks, the bastions of light manufacture dotted throughout exurbia in modern America, allow the pragmatic value of goods production to be coupled with the soothing banality of the uniform cul-de-sac. Front offices, buttressed by well maintained blacktop parking lots, and framed by a front facing floor to ceiling window shrouded in a flank of Venetian blinds, act as simple waiting areas. Salesmen, prospective customers, consultants, and curious applicants can enjoy the simple comfort of the waiting area, and can find solace through the receptionist, who will, in fact, see to it that the visitor is addressed.

The rear of the building serves as the shipping and receiving area. Great loading docks, padded with bumpers fashioned out of used tire components, accommodate the heaving comings and goings of trucks. The workers, more than likely, have also carved out a niche in the form of a wooden picnic table for smoke breaks and lunch on good weather days. This space, it is understood, is to remain unmolested, yet safely keep out of sight.

The industrial area, neatly kept behind the scrim of the front office, contains the heart of the actual construction and packaging of whatever widget being produced. The interior is filled with mazes of shelves, conveyors, tables and wires, all for the manufacture of this “thing” or these “things” and visitors to the industrial park, as an implicit understanding, are treated to a tour, hardhatted or not, of the production area.

Banal Series #16, Graffiti In A Restroom Stall

Public restroom stalls function as primitive message boards, defacto galleries of outsider art, and dissemination devices of purple and forbidden information.

A scribble might read: “For a good time call…” giving the reader in the intimate confines of this environ, within this very public space, purpose. A jaded ex, probably, would like the person using the facility to call. Ask about this “good time” to be had. Or perhaps the author had an intention of a slightly more altruistic bend. To share information with his fellow man. Good times, it seems, are good for humanity.

Crude scrawlings done up as codified monikers also grace these walls. Fashioned as a “tag,” these drawings become a recurring “logo,” or design signifying that the artist has graced these walls, and encourages the seated audience member to look for this logo elsewhere. Outsider artists become anonymous legends.

Conversations occur. Acting as a message center more basic and primordial than the most primitive websites and blogs, the restroom stall engages the reader in a dialogue. A quote is produced: “God is dead,” ~ Nietzsche, to which someone responded with: “Nietzsche is dead,” ~ God.

Weighty issues find themselves here, in this banal place, spun and carved. Apocryphal or not, the discussion continues. A reader, pants down, might pull a pen from their breast pocket, and post a response. To be read by some anonymous audience member. He may return, at a later time, after a later meal, to read subsequent comments. He may not return, but rest in knowing he has contributed to the greater knowledge of mankind. Such conversation is one of the fundamental bases of society, and the restroom stall continues to be an unsung bastion of culture.

Banal Series # 15, Eulogizing the Pay Phone

Pay phones – what used to be a destined mode of useful communication has devolved into lonesome effigies of some forgotten point on this exponential curve of electronic media. They stand, those sad pay phones, in stoic silence. Outside run down convenience stores. On a rusted steel post near a gas station. Ensconced, somewhat permanently, into a wall of cement and sedimentary rock laden with prehistoric fossils. The pay phone seems at home in such context.

The jingle of their ringer and the dull clatter of their handsets upon the solid thud of the chromed cradle are but memories. They were once the central feature of mobile communication. A presumed amenity in any area of automobile use, or perambulation, or travel; they could be found on nearly every city block. Of certain importance, they once upon a time often had booths erected for their containment and ease of use. Superhero mythology was fashioned to include their seeming ubiquity. The Everyman of Clark Kent transformed into Superman in such a booth – as this Everyman ducked into its confines under duress of urgency, and emerged superhuman. Pay phones were once the go to device for 20th Century man’s urgent matters. A call home. A loved one. An arrival in a strange town. A taxi. An array of goods and services listed in the often companioned phone book; bound in plastic sheaves, and tethered to the base of the pay phone stand by way of steel cable. Sometimes pages were torn out. Sometimes the entire steel cable was ripped from the base, leaving only a bundle of sharp frays.

The pay phone still sits, rusting, gleaming the chromed lock plate framed into the cast metal housing. Waiting to be used. Or at least referred to as a viable device. Or to even be noticed. Perhaps by a motorist sitting at a red light, talking on his cell phone.

Banal Series # 14, Hotel Lobbies

Hotel lobbies, like much of the fare associated with hotels and travel, denote waiting. The lobby, in this instance, is mutely decorated to feel familiar. To feel as is the traveler has been here before. Ah yes, at some opaque time in the past, he has strewn shoulder bags on the chest high counter, and signed papers. A quick glance at the fabricated living room set quells his nerves. The fountain, flanked by artificial plants further soothes the frazzled guest.

He can see a freestanding placard, in front of an open door to the left, telling him of a hotel restaurant. “Please wait to be seated,” the sign says. He will wait. And while he’s at it, he might waft down to the hotel bar. Have a drink, and a laugh. Maybe strike up a conversation with a local, or a fellow traveler. Make a friendship, which, garbled through the hyperbole of alcohol, will seem timeless, and to be understood as permanent. Napkins may be written upon. A sporting event may or may not flicker banally overhead.

The desk of the lobby frames his transit from restaurant to bar, and back to room. He might ponder having a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs splayed around the gargantuan coffee table. Take off his Florsheims. Read a James Patterson novel. This thought is momentary, and fleeting, and inherent to the design of the hotel lobby.

Banal Series # 13 Movie Theater Food

The moviegoer, having recently purchased tickets for a film of what might qualify as banal, or at least semi banal, is now faced with the very real and very tangible crisis of movie theater food. The dizzying carpet in tessellated patterns evocative of a casino, or a black light poster purchased from a novelty store, is mashed in mosaics and decoupage of popcorn and gummy treats. The proximity surrounding the snack and food area is fouled with a sickly sweet miasma: butter, and sugar, and nitrates, and sloth. An arcade in an enclave to the left of the snack area burbles and thuds as games utter promises to possible users. These phenomena impact the moviegoer at subconscious and unconscious levels. He is aware, yet unaware that he is aware. The entirety of this state of affairs registers, somewhere deep within.

He’ll just get in line here, behind two families, and a teenage couple embarking upon a fairly recent relationship. The glass case aglow in fluorescent awe displays candies. Candies in rectangular boxes which; to the naked and untrained eye give the appearance of actually more candy. The moviegoer is untrained, and he seems to be eyeing that box of Swedish Fish. Two trapezoidal aquariums behind the counter, to the right of the register churn and bubble ominous red and orange liquids. A great vat of popcorn, spewing in a yellow mountain inside a glass box showcases the food area. This is the benchmark of moviegoer food. The familiar sound of dulled popping emanates from a metallic disc at the top of the case, as kernels burst into white puffs and fall onto the pile. A yellow light warms the display.

Signage on the back wall tells of prices. Prices that should, in a less monopolistic setting, be competed and haggled out of existence. But not here. The moviegoer will have a mammoth tub of popcorn, with extra butter, please. Of course, he will also need an extra large beverage to wash it down. And the Swedish Fish. How about some Ju Ju Bees? He hasn’t seen those in a while. He places his order. He watches as a teenage worker fills his glorious tub with scoops of yellowed puffs. Another sputters some of the red fluid into a large plastic cup. One box of Swedish Fish and Ju Ju Bees each are placed on the glass counter with a faint rattle. The total: $26.47, with tax. The moviegoer does not question this, and numbly hands the cashier his debit card.

Banal Series # 12 Fitness Rooms in Hotels

These mirror walled, large glass windowed rooms in hotels speak of health. Or fitness. Guests may observe this small terrarium through the glass while traversing hallways to rooms, or lobbies or arcades. A placard, doubly noted in Braille, describes a minimum age requirement for usage. Keycard slots chirp red and green yeses and nos.

A guest, garbed in an appropriate t-shirt or polo, and shorts of lacrosse or basketball styling, laces his New Balance sneakers. He will have a go at the old universal weight machine. With some clicks of a spring loaded peg, the padded slab of the bench – yellow pokes of foam betraying the 1980’s sleekness of the vinyl at the corners – goes from abdominal slant board to the familiar and timeless plane of the benchpress. He slaps a pin into the stack of charcoal rectangles, and muscles the cantilevered and chromed bar up and down the worn guides. He expels a breath. Twelve reps should be enough. He is, after all, a guest in this hotel.

He moves on to the treadmill. A television, in the old tube style cranes overhead, and yaps a mindless and soundless loop of ESPN, or some other fare ubiquitous enough and familiar enough for broadcast in the gym of a hotel. Running up the speed to a balmy 5 mph, he times his jog with this segment of Sportscenter highlight reels. He tones down the speed with some beeps, and a waning whir, attenuating at a calm walk. He eyes the water cooler, flanked by a sleeve of conical paper cups, next to the wicker shelf of white hand towels. He contemplates an early exit, but realizes he has not pulled and heaved on the Aerodyne rowing machine; the last machine in the fitness room. The chilled satisfaction of the water cooler wins out, and with towel slung over shoulders our guest heads victoriously to the indoor pool.

Banal Series # 11: Big Box Stores 3 a.m.

The customer walks, or pushes a cart over the glimmer of linoleum. The aisles of the cavernous store fold out before the night shopper in a linear series of grids. This huge, largely empty store is a blank canvas. The shopper: perhaps an artist of nocturnal consumerism.

A box store at night is a great bay at low tide. The receded waters reveal pallets piled with cardboard cases of cans, cartons, seasonal gimcracks – denoting summer, back to school, Halloween, and Christmas – allowing the night shopper to see the inner workings of retail, and contextualize him or her in time. Workers face shelves, and restock goods, cleaving into the pallets over the course of a shift. Another worker pushes a frightening floor cleaner, not unlike a Zamboni of ice rink fame, up and down the aisles, traversing the entire surface by the end of the night.

The box store at night becomes a homogenous space station – kept at room temperature, and illuminated in familiar unnatural lighting – removed from the harsh realities of sweltering humidity, or sub freezing temperatures outside the embrace of the automatic doors.

A cohort of bored teenagers or slightly inebriated twenty somethings cannot seem to resist the ironic pleasure in reeling around this prepackaged wonderland. A jokester of the group inevitably gravitates to a motorized cart; clumsily goosing the electric throttle, and with a simpering whine, the cart leads the group, like clutch of locusts, onward through the labyrinth.

These large twenty four hour stores are generally a calm contrast to the cacophony of daytime shopping.

Banal Series #10 Abandoned Playground Equipment

Old playground equipment stands as decaying monuments to youth: reclaimed by tufts of grass and volunteers of weeds and yearning vines, as the flecking paint on tubular steel puckers to ragged brown lesions. A former slide mangled and warped to a twisted sheet. A see saw marred to a rotten plank, frozen and motionless.

Discarded or unused playground equipment strikes deep chords in the observer. A mature observer sees these rusted shells and hulls of swing set or slide as symbolic of a lost childhood: halcyon times of potential and promise: days filled with unbridled wonder; those pieces of equipment a broad canvas. Analogous to what Thomas Aquinas referred to as “Physical Evil,” these abandoned structures remain as bold referents to a former actual: an effigy to what once was.

A child observer, perhaps more astutely, may only see the starkly pragmatic. Rusted chains and bars are dangerous and forbidden, and ultimately useless. Sadness felt comes from an immediate lack of use value. Any vicarious sadness is contextualized opaquely; the recounted lost youth of a parent or a grandparent – murky tales of times gone by – romanticized by just such an oxidized ruin.